Research Associate (SRI) - Biological Sciences - Regular Full-time 2026-16804

One of Canada's Top 10 Research Hospitals, Sunnybrook Research Institute is developing innovations in care for the more than 1.3 million patients the hospital cares for annually.

Sunnybrook Research Institute is the research enterprise of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a teaching hospital fully affiliated with the University of Toronto. Research spans three Toronto-based campuses, eight programs and three scientific platforms. Our main aims are to understand and prevent disease, and to develop treatments that enhance and extend life. Our vision is to invent the future of health care. Each year, we conduct about $100 million in research across 500,000 square feet, including in the world’s first Centre for Research in Image-Guided Therapeutics.

Within the Biological Sciences platform at Sunnybrook Research Institute, the Zuniga-Pflucker Lab invites applications for a Research Associate in Developmental Immunology. We seek a highly motivated scientist with a Ph.D. and a strong interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern T cell fate decisions during immune development.

The successful candidate will join a collaborative research environment focused on deciphering how genetic, epigenetic, and environmental signals shape T cell differentiation and function. The project will leverage multi-omics approaches and advanced bioinformatic analysis to identify regulatory networks that control T cell lineage commitment and plasticity.

Summary of Duties:

• Investigate mechanisms underlying T cell development and fate specification.
• Design and conduct experiments using multi-omics approaches (e.g., single-cell RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, proteomics, epigenomics).
• Integrate and analyze large-scale datasets using bioinformatic and computational methods.
• Develop pipelines for multi-modal data integration and regulatory network analysis.
• Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams including immunologists, computational biologists, and clinicians.
• Present findings at scientific meetings and publish results in peer-reviewed journals.
• Contribute to mentoring graduate and undergraduate trainees in the laboratory.

Required Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in Immunology, Molecular Biology, Systems Biology, Bioinformatics, or a related field.
• Demonstrated expertise in T cell biology, developmental immunology, or lymphocyte differentiation.
• Experience with next-generation sequencing and multi-omics datasets.
• Proficiency in bioinformatic analysis using tools such as R, Python, or similar computational platforms.
• Strong publication record and excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently while contributing to a collaborative research environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with single-cell technologies (e.g., scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, spatial omics).
• Familiarity with machine learning or advanced computational methods for biological data analysis.
• Experience integrating transcriptomic, epigenomic, and proteomic datasets.
• Background in immunological model systems (e.g., mouse models, CRISPR-based perturbation).